Everything You Need to Know from Google Marketing Live 2025

Missed Google Marketing Live 2025? Here's your fast-track summary. 

In this episode of Google Ads Unleashed, host Jeremy breaks down the biggest updates from GML 2025 - AI Overviews, Smart Bidding Exploration, Performance Max reporting, and the long-awaited A/B testing in Merchant Center. 

Get your free 30 minute strategy session with Jeremy here: https://www.younganddigital.marketing/

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Transcript

Hello guys, and welcome back to Google Ads unleashed. Hope everyone is doing fine this Monday morning. So today we're going to be doing a bit of a different special episode. I'm actually going to be doing some for reaction video, because although, of course, I'm always, usually at the forefront of what's going on in Google ads. Something passed by me completely this year, and that was Google Marketing live. The reason is, normally, I'm there every year, and other have a look at what's what's new. But I was on my honeymoon. Then I was away for work in Italy. Then I had two podcasts scheduled in already with guests. So this is the first time I'm actually getting around to look in at what was new. And I've had a look at a lot, obviously, seen a lot online as well. And today I wanted to have a look at a summary of WordStream. Word stream are an America based agency who do a lot of good content on Google and Search Engine Journal, which everyone will be familiar with, with what who they are. It's just an industry paper, basically. And I will be looking at the core features which I think are interesting you guys should keep an eye on and which I think will be interesting for us going forward, I'm going to start with a summary of Search Engine Journal. I'm going to go through all the points, but by bit, which are going to be interesting for us, and I think which you should have a look at testing. So let's dive right in. So the first one will be ads and AI overviews now on desktop. So in the US, there will now be ads live for AI overviews on desktop users. Basically, what's going to be going on is, let's say someone searches a very high intent or an informational query, for which usually there wouldn't be an ad showing because it's too top of funnel or someone it's too unspecific for something that you're offering, you will now have potentially shopping ads or search ads serve as the result of that query. As far as I'm aware, this is only with AI Max, so search max or with with p max. So don't if I got this wrong, then let do. Let me know. But I think this is only available for that, and basically what happens the example was, let's say someone searches for something like, can I bring a dog carrier on on board of a plane, and then it would sort of serve dog carriers suitable for planes as a result? So I really think this could be really cool. It's definitely something that you should start thinking about how to optimize towards. The reality of the situation is, however, though this is still all relatively new, we don't really know how it's going to be served. I think what's going to be happening, though, is the same as with everything that's important about broad match, everything that's important about potentially a keywordless future, is that your PDP needs to start becoming amazing. You cannot neglect your product pages and your collection pages anymore. They need to be absolutely sick, and they need to be able to replace sort of, or be a placeholder for those types of informational searches and convert them as well. So super, super important to start thinking about search in this way. I think something that's going to be very interesting is AI max for search campaign. So I'll technically announce a few weeks before Gmail, there were more updates shared. It's a suite of features, including creative and targeting enhancements to optimize the existing switch campaigns. So this is already available in a couple of our campaigns. Essentially, it's a mix of broad mix of keyword lists, a mix of DSA, all in one go. We've not really tested it yet. I would probably give it a crack, especially if you have a content rich website, I can see this working really well. For instance, we have one or two clients who have a huge product portfolio of print and demand products. This could be an amazing way to test this. So always keep an open mind. I would very much encourage you to use that, and it's probably best for those purposes. I don't think that brought normal, broad match, normal search, exact and phrase isn't going to go anywhere anytime soon, at least the next one to two years. So it's extremely still. Relevant. But of course, I think we're all going to go down the AI route and the keywordless future. So again, big focus on what is actually in the content of your PDPs and collection pages. So focus on that. Then another update that they brought out was smart bidding exploration. I love this. The reason is, I've done plenty of episodes about how to, you know, determine your target ROAs for campaigns, how to even switch to powers as the massive equalizer, which makes it really easy to run more targeted campaigns across the board. But this is already available for a couple of our search campaigns. This is a new toggle in Google ads and search campaigns that allows to capture additional conversions that you may have not been eligible due to existing bidding restrictions. This is more or less like a ROAs target range. I love this idea. I have so many clients who say something like, I don't know. I'd love a ROAs of three. That's kind of my break even for most products. But I think I'm happy with like, a ROAs of two, seven. But more profitable is good as well. Three, three. Well, happy days. You can now up and down, toggle a ROAs flexible target of 30% that just allows you to spend more and really sometimes give the algorithm a bit more breathing space and not be so strict on the 300% target. So this is something I really, really like in and I think it's going to be really helpful for especially search and E commerce, because that is traditionally the campaign type which really struggles to not only work, but to provide volume as well. So if you can give the algorithm a bit of flexibility there, great. Same for powers, right? Even if you're adjusting for powers, you can say, hey, I'm happy with a 1.1 powers, but 1.3 would be great, right? So you can be flexible there. And I'm really, really loving this update. Then in p max updates. The next one that I'm looking at is channel level performance. So this has been a feature that's already been available for you. If you use Mike Rhodes's script, you're understanding how much of what is actually going through which channel. You know, how many, how much spend, how many conversions going through search display, blah, blah, blah, blah. But now you're going to be having this report within P maxes, and it's going to be more, yeah, like, just more visual as well. You'd be able to even see sort of flow charts in the P max report. And you'll see where conversions are coming from, what what conversions they are, and which channels they are. So really good stuff. I think that's just something that's really important. Then search terms report reporting that is something I've already actually seen that we have now the same level of search term report in both search and shopping, uh, across uh, p max placements in one campaign, I've actually already seen this super, super helpful just to be able to do more on that and not having to use two or three other tools to deploy, for instance, n gram analyzes, or other types of analyzes, you can simply exclude the search terms now, and it is so much easier. I don't know why they try to insist on that black box approach for so long. It's just more transparent. Everyone loves it. Better control. You can actually exclude real nonsense search terms much easier. And we can actually now exclude interacting users as well. So people have interacted, let's say, with a YouTube video, website, app. You can now exclude those from Pmax as well. I think it's a no brainer for it to really go for new customers, only very relevant for a lot of
for a lot of industries. Then we go to a few creative updates that search engine journals put together in its in its summary. So a lot of them are really not that interesting, you know, like insights finder or demand gen maps, inventory and stuff like that or that. Now with YouTube mastheads, you can make them shoppable. This might be really interesting for big brands, right? So a shoppable masthead would be super interesting for, you know, something like a ring camera, or it would be super interesting for a Sony product or something, if they bring something new out. But to be honest, all of this is a little bit wishy washy. I think the only two things that I find really, really interesting, which I think are going to be huge. Are going to be AI tools in product studio. So that means we can actually make better videos and images using generative AI and much quicker that actually cuts out, to a large degree, the client. Content or some sort of content production agency for at least smaller things and less complicated things. I think that's going to be a godsend, if it's good, right? As we know, generative AI is still in its infancy, and there are some teeth and issues with even if you use something like Zora from chat GBT. But yeah, we'll have to have a look what this is like, and I'm very keen to explore that. More important, however, will be AB testing in Merchant Center. I'm doing like the little sign from, I think it is Hunger Games. When she she says, volunteers, tribute. Like, I'm so happy that this is life that I think I've been trying to find a solution to AB testing in Merchant Center for like, close to 10 years, and it's just never been an easy or straightforward thing to do. But now AB testing is finally there, and you can AB test anything. Promotion recommendations. You can A, B, test, prices. You can everything, from what I've been told and from what I can see, product images, titles, this is going to be huge. Yeah, so this is absolutely fabulous. Then, the next thing are going to be measurement updates, which they've summarized. So there's a couple of things here which I find absolutely superb. First of all, incrementality test threshold, you're going to be very interested about an episode that's going to air next week on incrementality only. So stay tuned and tune in for next week to listen to that one. But it used to be a threshold of 100,000 per dollars per month spent in order to actually start with some incrementality tests, for instance, user based or geo based incrementality tests within Google ads, this threshold has now been dropped to $5,000 probably thanks to AI, because now it's just more accessible than ever for people to actually understand what impact the ads have on their marketing mix and on their bottom line. And I find that amazing. That's really good. That's going to be such an amazing update. And in fact, as an agency, this is one of the core things that we're investing in over the summer, to understand better how to budget, how to make smart decisions with our ads. There's also going to be some other attribution updates. For instance, Brand Lift updates, which are going to be really cool, but that was, for me, really the number one update for measurements, which made me super, super excited. Then there's some final other updates. For instance, genetic tools, I don't really find them particularly interesting. For instance, there's going to be one which is going to try, try and streamline campaign creation, which is going to help with performance improvements, is apparently going to be like, sort of an marketing advisor, Agent within Chrome to help solve problems. But to be honest, I don't think that's going to be as good as a proper Google Ad specialist, and I don't think it's going to replace anyone, at least for another 10 years. So to be honest, I think it's just a thing which they think might be interesting. But yeah, it's, I don't really think it's going to be that huge. Now I'm just going to be scrolling now through the other things which word stream summarized to see if I missed anything. But to be honest, from all that, I can see those for me, are the top updates, and those are the ones which had the most reaction from the industry as well. So those are the ones that you'll want to look into. I'm just going to repeat them now. That was a B testing in Merchant Center. It is AI mode in Google search and AI Max, those are going to be huge. The smart bidding exploration is going to be huge. Channel level performance and search term reporting for p max and then for creative updates, it is definitely the a, b test and shop in Merchant Center and some AI tools and product studio for measurement, it's definitely the incrementality testing. So those are the ones that you want to look into. And if this was helpful, because I bet you any money, a lot of people watched it without even understanding what they're what they've just watched, or they missed it, just like me, and then consumed this little summary. Then please give. The podcast to subscribe, there's going to be an amazing episode coming out next week, so stay tuned for that. Otherwise, if you have any questions, you can also reach me always Jeremy at young and digital dot marketing, or just go onto the website and book yourself into a 30 minute call with myself via Calendly. You can always find me on LinkedIn as well. It's Jeremy Young Google ads, or just send me a messenger pigeon or whatever you want to do to get in touch. As always, this has been Jeremy Young, your personal Google Ads expert, and I'm wishing you a happy and productive week ahead.